Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I’ve been unfortunately jonesing for some goddamn Dungeons & Dragons, as our third campaign party is suffering from scheduling issues, while our second campaign has currently run through all of my written material. It’s becoming hard at this point to imagine how I actually managed a weekly quest-writing schedule back during the main campaign; these days it generally takes me a few months to write an arc that will only take us around five sessions, so I’ve clearly got to achieve a better complexity balance for my own sake. In the meantime, I’ve been hacking diligently away at Blue Prince, and just recently reclaimed the throne of Orindia. Still not sure if the game actually has a “finish line” or not, but my passion for drafting mansions has not wavered, so I guess we’ll find out. But for now, let’s turn our focus to other matters, and burn down the week in films!
First up this week was The Raven, another vaguely Poe-inspired production by Roger Corman, this one starring Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Boris Karloff as three bickering sorcerers. After a magical duel with Karloff sees Lorre transformed into a raven, he flutters off to seek help from Price, who has chosen to seclude himself from magical society rather than challenge the treacherous Karloff. However, when Price learns his lost love Lenore has been spotted with Karloff (as I said, super-duper loose interpretation of Poe), he is compelled to challenge the sorcerer and take his rightful place as head of their apparent sorcerer society.
The narrative of this one is just a series of canned betrayals and counter-betrayals speckled with unconvincing special effects, but oh my god the cast! It is an absolute delight watching Price get kinda silly with it in his accommodating friendship of the simpering Lorre, and also to see Karloff attempt to act at all kindly or hospitable in spite of being literal Frankenstein. None of the boys are taking this one too seriously, and that’s all to the good; Price is a mild-mannered sorcerer dandy, Lorre is a conniving sorcerer con man, and Karloff juggles patronizing camaraderie and proud contempt, maintaining a regal air even as Corman’s team contrive cut-paper fireballs to emerge from his grasping hands. There’s nothing quite like the charm of mid-century horror, particularly when it’s shared with such distinguished company.
We then checked out Azrael, a recent action horror film set after the Rapture, in a world where ambiguous humanoid beasts known as “Burned Ones” prey on the scattered human survivors. Samara Weaving (Ready or Not’s unflappable heroine) stars as Azrael, a woman seeking to flee her Burned One-worshipping cult, who have all cut out their vocal cords to prevent the sin of speech. To survive, she will have to fend off both human hunters and flesh-eating demons, desperately seeking peace in a violent world.
Azrael is about as lean a feature as you could ask for, driven by a wordless conflict that carries us from first minute to last, and letting the audience draw their own conclusions about the world beyond its scope. Weaving is excellent, which is no surprise; Ready or Not demonstrated her talent as an inherently sympathetic action lead, and Azrael effectively winnows her capacity to project a will of iron down to its wordless fundamentals. Her confrontations with the villagers lead to some exciting Rambo-adjacent setpieces, but I found myself disappointed by the film’s straightforward “Burned One” beasties, which were basically just humans painted over with tar. Perhaps it was a failure of my own expectations to expect more The Ritual than First Blood, but if you present me with something that verges on folk horror, I am certainly going to assess it with those standards in mind. Azrael fails by that metric, but is such a quick, generally propulsive experience that it’s hard to feel disappointed in it “only” being a survival action feature.
Next up was The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, the second of three Columbia-produced Sinbad films featuring the inimitable effects of Ray Harryhausen. John Phillip Law stars as our brave adventurer, who receives a vision after acquiring a golden amulet that leads him to the country of Marabia. There, he finds himself caught in the conflict between the nation’s grand vizier and the evil wizard Koura, who needs the amulet to cement his terrible power. Joining with the vizier, Sinbad embarks on a grand race to acquire two other golden artifacts, and the youth, power, and wealth that their acquiring entails.
Though not as culturally inescapable as its predecessor, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad proved just as energetic and entertaining, and actually felt more cohesive as a narrative. Law possesses a carefree swashbuckler’s energy that makes for a perfect Sinbad, while Tom Baker is delightful as the wicked Koura, whose increasing disfigurement really emphasizes the dark bargain of his powers. Apparently it was his performance here that earned him the role of the fourth Doctor Who, and I can believe it; he’s got a larger-than-life affectation that really sells the fantastical play of forces here. And of course, Harryhausen’s monsters are always a delight, and Golden Voyage is well-furnished with imps, living statues, centaurs, and imposing gryphons. Harryhausen’s miniatures represent a high point in cinematic monster design that I’m not sure will ever be matched again; when I think CG can measure up, I’ll let you know.
We then concluded (well, for the moment) a modern revenge epic, as we screened John Wick: Chapter 4. Keanu Reeves again stars as the titular assassin, once again being hunted by the mysterious High Table that governs this not-so-secret society of killers, fixers, trackers, cabbies, house cleaners, dog walkers, and seemingly every second person you pass on the street. The ensemble cast includes returning favorites like Laurence Fishburne, Ian McShane, and Lance Reddick, alongside some choice new arrivals like Donnie Yen and Scott Adkins.
I had a great time with this latest John Wick excursion, and was also quite happy to accept it as the final outing for Reeves’ delightful late-career killer. The franchise’s world has simply gotten too unwieldy at this point, with Chapter 4 frequently recycling plot points or even reversing the choices of previous films, all of which is laundered by McShane’s silky gravitas into something resembling coherent worldbuilding. Wick must remake a talisman he sacrificed in the previous film, grapple with both self-destructively loyal and disloyal old friends, and eventually exploit a loophole in High Table law that would easily have resolved the plot of Chapter 2. It’s messy, yeah, but it’s all in service of a higher calling: wicked sick action scenes.
At this point, Chad Stahelski and his reliable collaborators have, alongside Timo Tjahjanto, essentially remade action cinema in their image. Modern action is balletic and physical choreography-driven precisely because John Wick and The Raid made it so; with its neon-drenched setpieces and tight focus on the mechanics of physical combat, the franchise has shifted the game fundamentally, and Chapter 4 is a glorious celebration of everything it does well. The franchise has fostered in me a Pavlovian response to seeing rooms full of glass, reflections, and bisexual lighting; I basically salivate on command, assured of the preposterous possibilities such boss levels will surely facilitate.
Alongside the usual assurances of copious, elegantly choreographed action and charmingly self-serious worldbuilding, Chapter 4 soars on the strengths of its two key additions: Donnie Yen and Scott Adkins. Yen’s character here is so compelling I assume the spinoff is already in production; he plays a blind, cane-wielding assassin who is Wick’s only true competition, and commits in basically every scene to being both the coolest and most charming person you’ve ever met. Meanwhile, Adkins dons a fat suit to play a surprisingly eloquent Russian heavy, and manages to dominate a scene featuring both Yen and Reeves through the force of his sweaty charisma. John Wick is as much a celebration of action’s past as it is the gateway to action’s future, and Chapter 4 chose some delightful guests for the party.
